


Greyscale

by long_love_the_king



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Gen, silver isn't THERE there but in my heart he is and also in their hearts.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 04:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/long_love_the_king/pseuds/long_love_the_king
Summary: The weeks after FRLG, which would have been so bleak they're impossible to reproduce. The better of the in-between days.





	Greyscale

About a week or so after the call he wakes up one night -- another night -- with his forehead beaded with sweat. He turns on the light to see if anything at all but him is still moving, and is horribly relieved to see his fingers listen to him as he flips the switch and then wiggles and stretches them, for good measure, puts them close up against the nightlight for all the red inside to show through, pulsing unseen, just to say there's something in there, a mess of things squishy and squicky, gross and infallibly human.

The dream was soundless this time. Not just the silent-treatment-by-statues thing which he was almost starting to get used to, either - this Silver hadn't been in greyscale from the get-go, he had been saying something, his lips had been moving but no sound would come out, and Gold had turned around for just a moment for some god-damned inconceivable reason like he still hasn't learnt that lesson, and when he looked back at Silver, there was the stone once again: wide, curious, innocent eyes, a frown not yet formed on its face.

It's all wrong either way. The real one - not the shitty fake dream statue, but Silver, his Silver - has a look of determination on his face, endless, eternal determination, and Gold had listened to the old man's disjointed words, it wasn't even instantaneous, it took just a bit, just long enough for them to understand what's happening to them, and he'd smiled in the face of the world crumbling because that's Silver for you, in face of everything that could come his way--

but what Silver is, is cold, immovable, breathless, and what Gold is, is smiling to himself, at no one, all alone.

He grabs his Pokégear on instinct again but pauses when he notices the time. He's pretty sure Chris wouldn't appreciate calls in the dead of the night, not after the last two times, so he lingers around Silver's name again, thumbs working their way around surrounding contacts and not fooling himself, playing with the idle thought: if he did actually call Silver's Pokégear, would it ring? Would there be any sound coming from the stone in Silver's pocket? Half-dreaming, his mind wanders. Would the call unfreeze them all, as if startling them out of some half-asleep contemplating state? Can you imagine if anything was that easy?

What kind of a reply would you get, trying to call up a Pokégear made of stone?

 

* * *

 

"You don't look like you've slept very well."

"Neither do you."

Chris huffs something intended as a smile. "Sleep isn't an issue."

"Is work giving you trouble?"

"Well, it's not like - just," she kicks a pebble. Gold follows its perfect arc with a whistle. "It's hard being around the Professor."

"Right, that Kanto guy was his grandson, huh?" He only catches himself using past tense after he closes his mouth. He wishes he could bite his own mouth off.

Chris' face tightens in response. "That, and he saw it happen. I keep feeling like he might bring it up again so I end up avoiding him, and that's fine as long as I get to go out to do fieldwork, but when I'm in the lab it's... distracting." 

The concept of Chris getting distracted by anything is strange, but he doesn't voice the thought - this isn't just your regular anything. No statue in the world will ever again be.

"Maybe it'd do you good to take a break, then?"

She shakes her head but doesn't look up from her hands. "I feel guilty enough as it is. Besides, I think I'm better off not having too much spare time."

"Chris, look, if you're having a hard time being around him right now, that's--"

She looks up at him; seeing her face (determined) is enough to break the sentence off. "Maybe it would do you good, too, to have somewhere you have to be."

 

* * *

 

Incidentally, the call -- mission -- somewhere to be is given to him by Samuel Oak, a few endless days later. The sound of his voice is strange; a different strange from that time, but hearing his voice at all would be enough to make Gold apprehensive. He says, there might be a way. A way for what, Gold asks. A way to bring them back, Gramps says. Bring who back, Gold says, grinding the words out because it would be too cruel to believe just yet and false hope should only take you so far and he's not there yet, he's not, but then there's shuffling noises and it's Chris' voice over the wires instead, clear as a blue sky, the only real thing he's heard in months.

"Gold, we can bring them back."

 

* * *

 

He makes a goddamn suit of armour.

 

**Author's Note:**

> here are some kids i've missed HORRIBLY lately. this one's fairly old (and very short-- SORRY!) but i went and dusted it and thought hey maybe this one's allowed to see the light of day huh... so here we are. next time i touch it up i'll bring that orpheus and eurydice reference home for sure


End file.
